


Snow Angels

by jilydear



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 10:14:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11644419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jilydear/pseuds/jilydear
Summary: Snow blurs the line between friendship and lovers, but that's okay because they kind of don't care anyways.





	Snow Angels

The first time they’re fifteen and it’s a bad day. The snow is thick and heavy on the ground, the castle behind her is glowing with the promise of hot chocolate and warmth and probably enchanted fire. She knows her friends will be looking for her-that they’ll be worried- but she really can’t be bothered. So far her years been pretty bleak with Severus basically being a death eater and her sister pushing her farther and farther away.  
She’s been on edge all week but a letter from home has really pushed her over the edge, there’s no mention of Petunia, just pleasant small talk with some questions about Lily scattered among the lines. She should’ve suspected that her sister wouldn’t want anything to do with her anymore, her letters stopped coming a while ago and now with her new husband, Lily doesn’t even expect her to be a footnote in her parents letters, but somehow it always hurts. Anyways, this is the first time there’s no ‘your sister misses you at the bottom of the page.’ It’s always an afterthought, but it always matters.  
Tears are pooling in the corners of her eyes, spilling over and almost freezing on her face. She sniffles and wipes her eyes with the back of her hands.  
“Erm-d’you need a tissue?’ James Potter asks awkwardly.  
He’s the absolute last person that she wants to see then, she’s supposed to loathe him-no, she’s supposed to hate him- but she really can’t bring herself to feel anything then, sitting on the bleachers of the Quiddich pitch probably red in the face.  
She accepts the tissue with as much grace as she can muster, “how did you get that?” she asks, pointing to a cut just below his eyebrow, all the way to his temples, ending just before his hairline.  
He looks panicked for a second, settling down besides her before he answers.  
“Remus, y’know-“ he breaks off before he gets any further, ruffling his hair uneasily. She knows not to press him or ask why he hasn’t gone to Madam Pomfrey, he probably wouldn’t answer anyways.  
“Why are you crying?” She says nothing to answer his question, but his eyes fall to the letter crumpled into her hands anyways.  
“Bad news from home?” He questions delicately, he knows that she’s a muggleborn and now is a worse time than ever to be one for both her and her family.  
“It’s more the issue that I’m not really getting any news from home,” she tries to feign a smile but she’s sure that by his unconvinced grimace that it looks just as fake as it feels.  
“Is your family in hiding?” He asks, trying to understand.  
“No, but maybe they should be.”  
He just as confused as he was a minute ago, if not more so but instead of pushing her like she’d expected, he sits quietly besides her, fussing with his gloves.   
After about two minutes of silence-she’s been counting in her head, it calms her down-he stands up, peeling his gloves off.  
“Look, I-uh I can tell that you want to be alone right now, and I’m the last person you want to see-“ not necessarily true anymore, “-so I’ll just get going.”   
He drops his gloves in her lap-overlarge, stripped red and gold-before stuffing his own hands into his pockets and walking away.  
She’s still reeling from his kindness when he’s slipping into the castle, the gloves are on her hands which are folded into her lap.  
The letter in probably flying around the field covered in mud-as it should be, she thinks tartly, heading towards the castle herself.  
James doesn’t mention their meeting again and nor does he ask for his gloves back, she almost reminds them that she had them at least a dozen times but the words die on her lips and she ends up keeping them.

 

The second time they’re sixteen and James hasn’t asked her out in months. She still has his gloves, and by this time she’s sure that he’s forgotten all about them. Slowly, shyly, a friendship has developed between her and the four boys, she’d never have pegged herself for someone who’d be part of their admirers but here she is, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.  
The war is looming over their heads, it’s infiltrated Hogwarts-their safe haven-faces are drawn and eyes are very often puffy. The Marauders have even let up on their incessant pranks. She misses them.  
It seems that everyone is one edge, being a muggleborn she fears for herself, her family, but she knows cowering wont help, hiding wont help, only fighting will help. There aren’t many people who want to talk about it, they’d rather pretend it’s not happening, they’d rather leave, but James isn’t one of those people.  
Their talk isn’t in hushed whispers, he’s going to fight, he’s going to get out there and he doesn’t really care who knows it. But she knows he’s worried too, worried about Sirius seeing his family, worried about Remus because she knows by now that he’s a werewolf and worried for Peter because, well, he’s Peter.  
“Y’know,” his breath is puffing in the cold air, “I’m scared too.”  
She sits back on the stands, smiling, “I never said that I was scared.”  
“Didn’t have to,” he returns with a roll of his eyes.  
She doesn’t reply immediately, blowing on her hands instead. Her breath is a puff of smoke in the wintry air. Despite her best efforts, her hands are almost constantly cold and she hasn’t yet mustered up the courage to wear his-practically stolen, at this point-gloves around him.  
“I s’pose we all are,” she allows finally, hands balled up in her lap.  
She doesn’t reply immediately, blowing on her hands instead. Her breath is a puff of smoke in the wintry air. Despite her best efforts, her hands are almost constantly cold and she hasn’t yet mustered up the courage to wear his-practically stolen, at this point-gloves around him.  
“I s’pose we all are,” she allows finally, hands balled up in her lap.  
"You're awful at that," he says with an amused smile, nodding towards her hands, which are turning red in protest of the cold.  
"Why don't you ever wear gloves?" She stays completely silent, turning instead a delicate pink colour.  
"In fact-" he goes on, undeterred, "-I remember giving you some gloves of my own, just one year ago."  
There's a kind of hope in his eyes, like if she's kept them, if she still has them, it means something.  
"The red a gold striped ones-I still have them." She wants to add that of course she still has them, they're her favorites, but she doesn't. Instead she smiles at him and hopes that everything she's too scared to say is in her smile.  
"It's really coming down today," his head is turned away from her, but she can hear the smile in his voice too.  
'My sister and I used to make snow angels-course, that's when we were younger, almost seven years ago," she adds quickly.  
He grins with childish delight, bounding down the stands in a few short strides, waiting expectantly at the bottom.  
"So," he says, when she is besides him," how do you make snow angels?"  
She laughs in surprise because she'd though snow angels were universal, but she loves teaching him something new, loves the way he lights up and how it makes her feel inside.  
They're closer now, as she explains how it all works, he's lying in the snow and she's standing above him, directing his movements when her fingertips brush over his exposed forearm.  
"Blimey Evans, your fingers are freezing," he sputters, sitting up.  
"I'l wear my gloves next time," she replies settling down next to him in the snow.  
"You'd better," he says, hesitantly reaching out for one of her hands.   
It's like a dream, sitting there in the snow with James Holding both her hands in one of his own looking at her earnestly. Her silence is like permission, so he blows on them, his warm breath bringing the pinkish colour back into them. His eyes never leave hers, and she's barley breathing because it feels, like the most intimate thing she's ever done with a boy and he's only blowing on her hands.  
"There you go," he says breathily-from the closeness or the blowing she doesn't know, "all better."  
"All better," she echoes, getting up with his help, like she's in a daze.  
'Wear these ones." he says, giving here his gloves again, this time they're just red with little snitches on them.  
He dithers for a moment, debating and then he lifts her hand to his mouth-the one with the gloves in it-and ghosts a kiss over her knuckles. She gasps lightly at his cold lips but it’s over as soon as it happened, he’s gone, spinning on his heel hurrying towards the castle. He slips once in the snow, but she doesn’t chase him, just watches him get smaller and smaller until her heart stops pounding, then she follows.


End file.
